The population of Bradenton Florida has increased 10% over the last 15 years, and our Denta+media® research has turned up some interesting trends in this area. With the relatively small population of 54,377 we have identified 111 dental offices in Bradenton. The very average median household income of $51,000 would not indicate an office/person ratio of better than one, but here we find a 2:1 ratio. The neighboring towns of Palmetto and Elenton could not account for enough extra demand to warrant the concentration of offices in Bradenton. There is a high penetration of national level dental chains, including Bright Now!, Coast Dental, Aspen Dental, Comfort Dental and Heartland Dental, as well as a significant presence of local chains such as Suncoast Dental, Advanced Dental, Orthodontic Specialists and Waterside Dental. Amongst these 10 or so dental chain offices, we find 100 offices manned by sole proprietors, an astonishing number for this combination of population/median household income. In particular, the number of orthodontic offices in this traditional retirement area is high… we have identified 8 orthodontic offices and 2 dedicated pediatric dental offices. Interestingly, we have identified only 2 dedicated prosthodontic offices.

In such a competitive environment, we would expect to find a number of offices scoring higher than 30+ on the Denta+media Social Factors marketing scale, however, the top scoring office is 29 ? the Smile Smart Dental Center, and we have find a number of offices scoring in the 20s, most notably, Children's Dentistry of Manatee. Orthodontic office Carroll & Sutton, with its shark logo had one of the most innovative logos we have seen. In general, the top scoring offices garnered points on good use of Facebook and reviews accumulated on Facebook and Google+, which continue to trend over Yelp as the most popular review methods. We were able to identify some local events, such as a December 2016 Health Expo, but not much evidence that local offices are building a local event marketing strategy, something that we at Denta+media highly recommend. With the assumption of a younger demographic, and a substantial percentage of local homeowners being aspirational new household formers, Bradenton looks to be a perfect spot for dental offices to implement many of our recommended Denta+media Social Factors marketing strategies.